FTFA:"Among current non-internet users, almost half (48%) say the main reason they don't go online now is because they don't think the internet is relevant to them -- often saying they don't want to use the internet and don't need to use it to get the information they want or conduct the communication they want," said the report.

Not using the internet is like proudly proclaiming you refuse to read books, or even read.

"I like my information the old fashioned way: made up in my own head!"

Ed Finnerty:FTFA: "Among current non-internet users, almost half (48%) say the main reason they don't go online now is because they don't think the internet is relevant to them -- often saying they don't want to use the internet and don't need to use it to get the information they want or conduct the communication they want," said the report.

Not using the internet is like proudly proclaiming you refuse to read books, or even read.

"I like my information the old fashioned way: made up in my own head!"

My mom would proudly tell you that she has never used the internet and hasn't read a book in years. It's in the same sort of weird mindset that thinks vegetables are elitist and exercise is for suckers.

No, 20% of adults *think* they don't use the internet. There is a difference. They may not be directly and intentionally using the internet but unless they are Amish it is almost assured that they are using the internet one way or another.

At this point almost all phone systems have switched over to digital. Landlines are only analog from the CO to the home (and sometime they only switch over to analog at the NID) and from the CO out it is all IP routed.

Not all cable systems have switched over to digital completely yet but they are working on it. All the signalling from the Box to the office is done via IP.

At this point it is getting to where you have to intentionally try to find a cell phone that doesn't directly connect to the internet.

These days to claim you aren't ever using the internet you would pretty much have to not have phone service, a TV, or any modern video game system. For now most stand alone radios don't connect to the internet but quite a few general music players have wi-fi.

My aunt thinks if she has a computer, someone will wipe out her bank account and steal her identity. She doesn't understand that if you don't put the info in, no one can steal it. She just thinks that computer = bad. It's really not worth it to try to change her mind.

Hacker_X:No, 20% of adults *think* they don't use the internet. There is a difference. They may not be directly and intentionally using the internet but unless they are Amish it is almost assured that they are using the internet one way or another.

At this point almost all phone systems have switched over to digital. Landlines are only analog from the CO to the home (and sometime they only switch over to analog at the NID) and from the CO out it is all IP routed.

Not all cable systems have switched over to digital completely yet but they are working on it. All the signalling from the Box to the office is done via IP.

At this point it is getting to where you have to intentionally try to find a cell phone that doesn't directly connect to the internet.

These days to claim you aren't ever using the internet you would pretty much have to not have phone service, a TV, or any modern video game system. For now most stand alone radios don't connect to the internet but quite a few general music players have wi-fi.

penthesilea:Ed Finnerty: FTFA: "Among current non-internet users, almost half (48%) say the main reason they don't go online now is because they don't think the internet is relevant to them -- often saying they don't want to use the internet and don't need to use it to get the information they want or conduct the communication they want," said the report.

Not using the internet is like proudly proclaiming you refuse to read books, or even read.

"I like my information the old fashioned way: made up in my own head!"

My mom would proudly tell you that she has never used the internet and hasn't read a book in years. It's in the same sort of weird mindset that thinks vegetables are elitist and exercise is for suckers.

I had to find a phone that wouldn't use the internet. Luckily, it was one of the cheaper ones. I guess I understand why people would want it - but it simply isn't worth the cost.

The move from analog has mostly been terrible IMO. The digital land line phones are absolute garbage. Digital TV sucks big time. With analog TV, if I had a little signal, I could still watch the tv show - even with a little bit of "snow" on the screen. With Digital TV, if you can't get the signal strong enough, you can't even get a watchable station. I'll even complain about LCD tvs - they don't have nearly as good a picture as an old fashioned CRT tube.

/Get off my lawn and give me back my T.V. stations!//Also, the internet makes you stupid. I try to limit my usage to 1-2 hours a day.

Kimpak:Hacker_X: No, 20% of adults *think* they don't use the internet. There is a difference. They may not be directly and intentionally using the internet but unless they are Amish it is almost assured that they are using the internet one way or another.

At this point almost all phone systems have switched over to digital. Landlines are only analog from the CO to the home (and sometime they only switch over to analog at the NID) and from the CO out it is all IP routed.

Not all cable systems have switched over to digital completely yet but they are working on it. All the signalling from the Box to the office is done via IP.

At this point it is getting to where you have to intentionally try to find a cell phone that doesn't directly connect to the internet.

These days to claim you aren't ever using the internet you would pretty much have to not have phone service, a TV, or any modern video game system. For now most stand alone radios don't connect to the internet but quite a few general music players have wi-fi.

This!

//It sounds like you work in a similar industry as me

Sadly I am unemployed. I do however have Geek in my bloodstream hardcore. Multiple relatives who work (or used to work) in hospitals, phone offices, and communications systems for the USAF.

I used to not trust anyone who didn't read. Now I don't trust anyone whose eyes glaze over if you mention anything about getting information off the internet. Even if I didn't "use" the internet (spend hours a day on Fark) I still find that I need it to look up things four or five times a day.

When people tell me that they don't need the internet, I just figure that they aren't curious about anything and don't care to learn anything new. Just like I used to think if they told me that they didn't read.

Hacker_X:Kimpak: Hacker_X: No, 20% of adults *think* they don't use the internet. There is a difference. They may not be directly and intentionally using the internet but unless they are Amish it is almost assured that they are using the internet one way or another.

At this point almost all phone systems have switched over to digital. Landlines are only analog from the CO to the home (and sometime they only switch over to analog at the NID) and from the CO out it is all IP routed.

Not all cable systems have switched over to digital completely yet but they are working on it. All the signalling from the Box to the office is done via IP.

At this point it is getting to where you have to intentionally try to find a cell phone that doesn't directly connect to the internet.

These days to claim you aren't ever using the internet you would pretty much have to not have phone service, a TV, or any modern video game system. For now most stand alone radios don't connect to the internet but quite a few general music players have wi-fi.

This!

//It sounds like you work in a similar industry as me

Sadly I am unemployed. I do however have Geek in my bloodstream hardcore. Multiple relatives who work (or used to work) in hospitals, phone offices, and communications systems for the USAF.

Just knowing the above things about telco's would get you a long way in an interview with a telco NOC or an ISP that offers VoIP.

My surviving parental unit is one of those "Doesn't use the internet" types--even explicitly looked for a dumb phone.

Then again, in the Surviving Parental Unit's case, it's understandable:

a) Well into their seventiesb) Had an undiagnosed learning disorder as a kid, probably some form of dyslexia, that STILL makes reading difficult (and pretty much left them functionally illiterate until the mid-80s when they HAD to get their GED to get their CDL) and has caused them to prefer forms of technology involving the spoken wordc) Former blue-collar worker who tends to be confused by setting time on the VCR, much less smartphones or the Internetd) Is in generally poor health nowadays due to COPD and lives on Social Security and pension as a result

(In other words, Surviving Parental Unit is in pretty much all the categories of People Who Has No Intarwebs: 60+ years old, has a disability that functionally makes using the Internet for its intended purpose difficult, tends to not use a great deal of tech he can't speak directly to, and doesn't see a point in it.)

Even text messaging tends to be left to the sibling--again, due to the learning disability (and the fact that there aren't really services for adults with a reading disability well into their seventies who are in end-stage COPD). :P

That said--they're not one of those persons who ever really needed the Internet so much; what we used the Internet for nowadays, Surviving Parental Unit used CB radio for until they got ill.

kukukupo:I had to find a phone that wouldn't use the internet. Luckily, it was one of the cheaper ones. I guess I understand why people would want it - but it simply isn't worth the cost.

The move from analog has mostly been terrible IMO. The digital land line phones are absolute garbage. Digital TV sucks big time. With analog TV, if I had a little signal, I could still watch the tv show - even with a little bit of "snow" on the screen. With Digital TV, if you can't get the signal strong enough, you can't even get a watchable station. I'll even complain about LCD tvs - they don't have nearly as good a picture as an old fashioned CRT tube.

/Get off my lawn and give me back my T.V. stations!//Also, the internet makes you stupid. I try to limit my usage to 1-2 hours a day.

If you can see a fuzzy signal with an analog receiver that same amount of signal would give you a crystal clear picture with a digital receiver.

Kimpak:Just knowing the above things about telco's would get you a long way in an interview with a telco NOC or an ISP that offers VoIP.

That would be assuming any of them were hiring. The job market is still very much in favor of employers being able to pick and choose. Lately I've seen even normal tech support jobs have a list of requirements and wants a full page long.

I kid you not, it is at the point where the requirements section is longer than the sections for description, location, and pay combined.

Hacker_X:Kimpak:Just knowing the above things about telco's would get you a long way in an interview with a telco NOC or an ISP that offers VoIP.

That would be assuming any of them were hiring. The job market is still very much in favor of employers being able to pick and choose. Lately I've seen even normal tech support jobs have a list of requirements and wants a full page long.

I kid you not, it is at the point where the requirements section is longer than the sections for description, location, and pay combined.

Don't let requirement lists scare you away. HR people always list their dream list of requirements but in the end it doesn't matter. ....which leads to our HR hireing n00bs right out of (or in some cases, still in) community college because everybody else is too scared to apply.

Not surprising. A lot of kids these days don't use much more than twitter or facebook, which hardly qualifies as "using the internet".

Our local college library has seen renewed demand for current edition research materials in print, and that's with a freshman class that has grown 30% each of the past three years! These kids will use their GPS to do maps and look up businesses, they prefer to Skype or call or text to chatting or using web forums, etc. Social media has changed what counts as desireable use of the internet.

I know technically many of these may be applications of the Internet technology, but they are so abstracted and so isolated that many adults don't view themselves as using the internet just because they use Skype, fx.

I myself go through manic phases of heavy internet use, interrupted with regular month-long cessations where my internet use is limited to streaming netflix on my playstation. So, month online, month offline. I don't know why that is. I would say I don't really use the internet. I am fine with that.

R Kelly's Doo Doo Butter:kukukupo: I had to find a phone that wouldn't use the internet. Luckily, it was one of the cheaper ones. I guess I understand why people would want it - but it simply isn't worth the cost.

The move from analog has mostly been terrible IMO. The digital land line phones are absolute garbage. Digital TV sucks big time. With analog TV, if I had a little signal, I could still watch the tv show - even with a little bit of "snow" on the screen. With Digital TV, if you can't get the signal strong enough, you can't even get a watchable station. I'll even complain about LCD tvs - they don't have nearly as good a picture as an old fashioned CRT tube.

/Get off my lawn and give me back my T.V. stations!//Also, the internet makes you stupid. I try to limit my usage to 1-2 hours a day.

If you can see a fuzzy signal with an analog receiver that same amount of signal would give you a crystal clear picture with a digital receiver.

Don't know if this was true for all places, but in Detroit, the digital signals don't have quite the same reach as the analog stations used to. So snowy analog => dead digital.

/At my place, we were lucky. Lost all the crazy black churchpeople channels out of Flint that we skipped over anyways, and CBC (which I'm sad about, because it was good for hockey, curling, skiing, and comedy at 2:30 on a weekday).//Know some folks who lost everything because they were right on the edges.

Gotta laugh at the "People different from me are wrong and stupid" mentality of this thread.

Netta, please.

I'm online a lot, but I only 'need' to be to the extent that I choose to be. I guess my question to y'all -- call it a challenge if you like -- is this: Could you, if you absolutely had to (for whatever reason) live without it? If so, then for how long?

If you feel you can't, then you can't. Those who feel they can, can. That's all there is to this. Whatever else you make of it is your own baggage, not someone else's. And the fact that other people in the world may be different from you in some way you don't completely understand doesn't make you right and them wrong, or you better than them. They're just different. So are you, to them. From their perspective, *you're* the one with a problem.

Hacker_X:Sylvia_Bandersnatch: Hacker_X: No, 20% of adults *think* they don't use the internet.

Is that like the large percentage of Americans who think they don't use or need government services?

If nothing else they all use government maintained roads. So yes, exactly like that.

And most of them much more than that, heh. I've tried a few times to imagine how someone could live without government, and while I still don't consider it literally impossible, I think it's at best extremely difficult. It would certainly be extremely limited, by almost anyone's standards.

R Kelly's Doo Doo Butter:kukukupo: I had to find a phone that wouldn't use the internet. Luckily, it was one of the cheaper ones. I guess I understand why people would want it - but it simply isn't worth the cost.

The move from analog has mostly been terrible IMO. The digital land line phones are absolute garbage. Digital TV sucks big time. With analog TV, if I had a little signal, I could still watch the tv show - even with a little bit of "snow" on the screen. With Digital TV, if you can't get the signal strong enough, you can't even get a watchable station. I'll even complain about LCD tvs - they don't have nearly as good a picture as an old fashioned CRT tube.

/Get off my lawn and give me back my T.V. stations!//Also, the internet makes you stupid. I try to limit my usage to 1-2 hours a day.

If you can see a fuzzy signal with an analog receiver that same amount of signal would give you a crystal clear picture with a digital receiver.

I have to say, in Texas digital made my signal better. I got all kinds of shiat and it looked great. When I came to the southeast, I couldn't get shiat anywhere, even with the snake oil amplified antenna. Mind, everything is spread out as fark and I'm supposed to be getting a signal from 40 miles away, but I still can't get shiat.

My dumbassed hypothesis is that local stations cheaped out on digital transmitters